Fighting
by aznillusion183
Summary: A one-shot that encompasses Zoro and Robin's relationship in a modern AU. One of the scenarios I had thrown out the window for Water Sector.


Zoro stared into the reflective bottom of his glass; it was empty, unfortunately, but that could be remedied with a full bottle. He looked to his side slowly and realized that that had to be fixed, too. It wasn't anything a trip to the liquor store wouldn't fix.

At least some things in this world could be mended with a full wallet and a full cup.

The streets were busy at this time of night; it was downtown, after all, and this part of the city never slept. The bars were being cleaned out, but there were still a few places who welcomed people like Zoro with open arms at all times of the day.

"Back again, eh?" The wizened old man looked shrewdly at Zoro through a thick layer of bullet-proof glass and old lottery tickets. "That's the second time tonight, boy. Having a party?"

Zoro arched an eyebrow to indicate that a fraction of his attention was on the impromptu conversation. "Yeah, it's a party, and all the skeletons in my closet are invited. Is this all the Jack Daniel's whiskey you have left?"

"You cleaned out my shelves earlier this evening, don't you remember?"

"Oh, yeah…" Zoro made a mental note not to stop by the same liquor store twice in a day. He grabbed a few other bottles and plunked them on the counter, pulling out a battered old wallet. "How much is it?"

The man squinted at Zoro for a moment. "Say, you're that swordsman that all the kids are talking about these days, aren't you? Ra…Ro…Roronoa?"

Zoro nodded, tapping his foot patiently on the dusty floor. "Yes, that's me. How…?" He looked up and saw a fresh, new poster that stuck out starkly from the swamp of lottery tickets and beer advertisements on the counter. "…Ah. My picture on this year's AMMA—Armed Mixed Martial Arts competition?"

"It's an impressive pose. I'm guessing you didn't know that they took it?" The old man clicked his tongue. "You ought to sue them for something like that."

Zoro sighed. "I knew, I just…forgot. My agent's supposed to be taking care of all that, though." _Damned Nami. _He looked critically at his picture on the black poster. He was finishing the final slash on last year's second-place contender, Daz Bones; there was a spray of blood too realistic to have been Photoshopped, and he was wearing his black headband; it gave him a demonic and dark look that was rather admirable.

"They say the famous ones are always the most troubled," the old man said as he put Zoro's purchases in a bag. "Here. A bag of dried squid on the house. It tastes great with alcohol."

"Are you sure…?" Zoro hesitated at the gift. "I don't even know your name." He handed the man a couple of wrinkled bills after glancing at the register.

He gave Zoro a few singles and a handful of change with a grin. "The name's Rayleigh. Have a good night, you hear?" Zoro nodded and left, feeling like he had forgotten something. It hit him when he was a few blocks away. _Rayleigh! Of course!_ _He's only one of the most infamous legends of AMMA—a swordsman who could cut through the light, it was said. Idiot, you should have said…_ Zoro sighed. _Nah, he wouldn't want that kind of attention anymore. Hell, _I_ don't like the attention I get…_

Zoro unlocked the door to his apartment, tossing his keys into a dish next to the door and placing the bottles on the table with a sigh.

_Fighting…_

_---_

He had always been fighting.

_Kuina!_

Okay, perhaps that wasn't fighting as much as struggling against an inevitable loss. Still, he had his pride—it was fighting to him, to get stronger, to be the best. He liked this cycle of life-and-death situations; it was more exciting than a job in a cubicle, and he couldn't imagine any other existence. He was complete.

Fighting thugs that the police were too busy to go after themselves came after he decided to make his way into the world with a highschool diploma in one hand and a fist full of blades in the other.

Not going to college had been a bad idea. He had no connections, no qualifications, and no options.

When he met her, he didn't think she'd irrevocably change the course of his life.

"Mr. Roronoa?"

She was Smoker's smoking hot secretary—Robin. Ms. Robin Nico.

"I hear from Officer Tashigi that you've been in and out of here with more criminals than most police officers have managed to rope in." Her voice was amused, but even; she had no admiration for him. She noted his accomplishments as one notes how the sky is blue every day.

Zoro merely grunted as he hauled his latest catch in through the door. Tashigi had offered to give him handcuffs to use after seeing how efficient Zoro was, but he always refused. He never needed them.

"I can't imagine that this could be a very stable lifestyle, though," Robin hummed as she tapped away at a keyboard. "Does this man have a name?"

Zoro fished in the man's pockets and picked out a wallet, and then an ID. "No state license, but there's a business card that says 'Buggy the Clown.' What a freak…"

Robin typed away. "Oh, Buggy. He's already been put away a couple of times for a few misdemeanors. Just leave him there, I'll have someone take care of him."

"My pay?" His demand was blunt.

She pulled a slip of paper from the printer that she had just run off. "Take this to the cashier to the left. You should know by now that I'm not the one to pay you."

He shrugged. "Just making sure." He turned and made it to the door before hearing a scuffling sound behind him. He turned to see Buggy gripping Robin by the wrist with a crazed look on his face.

"Don't move, or she gets it," Buggy hissed, brandishing a knife in his free hand.

Zoro grumbled in dissatisfaction. "I'm surprised you can still stand. I hit you on the base of the neck with the flat of my blade. You can't have been able to stand…ah. How careless." An unusually tall and stiff collar had taken off the brunt of the blow. "Don't move. I'll take care of him, Nico."

"No need," Robin said with unusual composure for someone being threatened at knifepoint. Her entire body relaxed, and she moved more quickly and fluidly than a water snake. Zoro watched in interest as her hand somehow escaped Buggy's grasp and guided his head around in a circle before her other arm moved up and struck him across the neck. It took only a moment more for her to pry the knife from his hand and pin him down on the floor with his arms in a position that made even Zoro wince.

"Impressive." Zoro turned and began to walk away again.

"You won't stay to make sure a defenseless woman like me is safe?" Robin's voice was light and teasing.

Zoro grinned to himself as he called back, "You'd do better out in the field than behind that stuffy old desk, Ms. Nico." She smiled at his use of the honorific.

---

It had taken two more attempts at Robin's life for Zoro to give her his full attention.

"How about a date this Saturday night? There's a great—"

"—yakitori shop on 1st street and Main, right? I'll meet you there at six." Robin smiled as she interrupted Zoro, who was looking quite astonished. "We're keeping tabs on all the bounty hunters, you know. That's your favorite hangout, apparently."

Zoro laughed as he left. _This woman's going to be a handful._

---

Zoro looked at the mountain of piling bills in front of him, grimacing. Keeping a girlfriend—not that Robin had ever admitted to being his girlfriend, but he privately thought that she wouldn't mind if called her that—was expensive as hell, not to mention the rising cost of utilities. He'd only just barely been pulling along before, but now he was going to have to augment his income.

He had talked to a few people; Yosaku told him about AMMA.

He didn't tell Robin; she probably wouldn't approve.

---

"I heard that you had cleaned up, but really, Roronoa? AMMA?"

Zoro looked up from where he was carefully chewing a bit of chicken. The IV attached to his arm made him feel tethered, and the beeping of his heart was annoying as hell. It was hard to chew with a bandage wrapped around his head.

"It doesn't concern you, Mihawk."

Mihawk sighed. "I was willing to take you on as a protégée. Why did you turn that down, you fool? Don't you know that only the scum of the fighting world fight in that kind of environment for money?"

Zoro didn't answer the question, intent on getting a sliver of meat out of a corner between two bones. "May, 1985. A young, aspiring swordsman has swept the AMMA world by storm and won the title on his first try in the competition. Name? Juraquille—"

"Enough," Mihawk growled. "I grew out of that. It was a bad phase. I'm here to tell you to get out of it before you get too deeply into it. It would be a waste of talent if you were to die there. You nearly died tonight, you fool."

Zoro ignored him. The wad of cash that he had won tonight was signing sweetly in his pocket. He'd be able to take Robin out for a decent meal in a nice restaurant with real candlelight…after he got out of the hospital.

She liked strong men, after all.

---

"I don't like you hanging around that guy." Zoro's voice was low, firm, and imperious.

"He's just a friend, Zoro." Robin's voice was as unyielding as his.

"What do you see in Lucci, anyways?" Zoro demanded. "Didn't you go out in high school or something, and you left him because he hit you?"

"He's changed," Robin insisted. "He's grown up, and now we have a good friendship."

Zoro knew what kind of woman Robin was. Almost annoyingly mysterious, very mature—her age was still an unknown number to him, and she hadn't been happy to find him looking in her wallet for her driver's license—beautiful, dangerous. The more he tried to connect to her, the more distant she became. He was like that too, but he had hoped that by opening up to her she would reciprocate.

Lately, when he greeted Robin at the police station, he didn't fail to notice the minute tears and rips on the backs of her shirt, as though some feral stray cat had decided to latch on to her. The bruises on her wrists were suspicious; she was capable of avoiding constriction at the hands of an enemy, and when they made love he was always gentle. Sometimes, he thought he caught a whiff of cologne beneath her intoxicating perfume when she rushed to their dates, late and unusually disheveled.

"Robin. What the hell is going on?"

She refused to tell him.

He kept going at AMMA, hoping that if he fought enough, something would happen to fix everything. If he made enough money, he could support Robin like a real man with a real job. If he became famous enough in the ring, maybe the glamour would make her gravitate to him and be more comfortable around him, somehow. If…if…if…

He knew that it was pointless to keep hanging on, but he couldn't help it. He had never felt so obsessed or clingy, and he detested the feeling; hated what she did to him, what she made him do; loved her.

---

"_Lucci!"_

Zoro stood outside of Robin's apartment. His hand was still in a fist as he was about to knock on the door, but that cry of ardor had stopped him just before his hand had touched the thick wood.

The blood was pumping in his ears, making him feel light-headed and reckless. He didn't care if Lucci was one of the police force's most prized special ops agents, and that the man knew a hundred ways to kill someone with his left hand. He had his swords strapped across his back, and this flimsy wooden door had as much of a chance of stopping him as a paper one.

Zoro burst into the room, his swords out and ready to jump into the bedroom to wreak havoc.

He didn't expect to see them on the _kitchen counter,_ of all places, wrapped up more tightly than should have been humanly possible.

Zoro saw the two faces staring at him in surprise; one brawny hand holding Robin's two delicate ones in an iron grip above her head while the other pawed at her body, making her squirm. Zoro was disgusted to see that Lucci hadn't even stopped playing with Robin even after seeing an intruder on the premises.

---

_Back to the present…_

Zoro sighed as he took another swig of whiskey. The bag of squid lay on the table, forgotten.

This was the last night he would have as a free man. It was only a matter of time until the police realized what had happened.

His three swords were on the special rack he had had constructed for them, cleaned and gleaming. Mihawk would take care of them.

Zoro laughed miserably as he finished the bottle, throwing it against the wall and savoring the sound of shattering glass with a grimace.

Destruction was all he was good for, it seemed.

---

Rayleigh yawned as the radio blasted the morning's newscast, signaling that it was time to start a new day. He had had odd dreams about the young swordsman from last night, and none of them boded well.

He stood, scratching himself absently as he listened to the news.

"…_a couple, murdered in their own home…work for the police…Rob Lucci and Robin Nico…Roronoa, wanted for 120 million beri…"_

---

A/N: I just like making angsty situations between Zoro and Robin. Lucci/Robin was a pairing I've seen once or twice that would be very unlikely in a canon situation, but…this isn't canon! Yay!

I'm trying to stimulate my brain for EOS and WS...sigh.


End file.
